Stephanie and I decided to try and revive our trip to Iceland that we had originally looked into in 2022. That trip was originally planned as a 15 Day Viking Cruise Line trip from Iceland to New York, and it was to be our inaugural cruise with Viking. We had made a Blog Site for that trip, and then we postponed the trip for a number of reasons, one being that the least cost cruise on Viking was in May, and that s a bit early in the season to go to Iceland. After some research, we decided to not visit Iceland on a cruise, it was better suited for exploration on a land trip, and more cost effective.
We opted instead to do our first cruise with Viking on a Transatlantic Cruise from Barcelona to Ft. Lauderdale, which we completed in December of 2022. Already in the plans even then was a 15 Day Alaska Land Trip for the Summer of 2023, so we could not go to Alaska in July, and then to Iceland in August, there was too much going on at home. We had picked August as the best time to go to Iceland since it is summer and by then, all of the interior Highlands Roads are open (typically by mid July) after the winter snows melt.
So, after all of that history on our attempted trip to Iceland and other travels, we decided to look at trying to go to Iceland in 2024.
To date, all we have done it to look at some airfare costs and talk about the possibility of renting a campervan for our time in Iceland. It is too early to book airfare for August, the flights are not yet available this far out.
We have tentatively picked a timeframe from about the second week in August for a duration of about 20 days in total. Most of that will be in the campervan, and then a couple of nights may be staying in a hotel in the capital Reykjavik at the end after we drop off the campervan. We thought that it would be too difficult to transfer directly from dropping off the campervan to the flight home, but we are not yet sure how difficult that might be, it will really depend on return flight departure times. A couple of nights in Reykjavik would also let us explore the city without having to worry about parking the campervan there if it was part of that portion of the trip, and then having to also have an overnight place to stay in the campervan.
Our preliminary thoughts, after reading about campervan travel in Iceland, it to rent a 4 wheel drive campervan, and also get one that might be a little larger than the bare minimum van size. The biggest difference in the larger size is in headroom, most everything else is about the same between a normal height van and the XL size, which adds headroom, mainly for the addition of a raised bed for adding sleeping space for additional passengers in the higher section. Of course, we do not need the extra bed space, but it can also serve as additional storage, which is at a premium in these vehicles.
It may come down to cost, a normal 4 x 4 van is about 30%-40% less cost than the larger size, but most people who have done these trips and written about them wish they had gone larger for a little more comfort. However, in many of these cases, their campervans were really small, much smaller than even a normal van.
There are about four different companies that rent these larger 4 x 4 Campervans, and in general, the pricing is pretty competitive between the different companies. The 4 x 4 capability gives us the ability to travel on the Highland Roads, called F-Roads, which by lay requires 4-wheel drive to travel on them. The choice may come down to availability, cost and the layout of the interior of the vehicle, these are generally all custom outfitted by each respective company.
There is a lot of information in this type of travel in Iceland, it is fairly popular. However, it also requires a lot of planning and research to select a route and keep on schedule to be able to see as much as possible. Most references say it is cheaper than renting a car or 4 x 4 vehicle and then staying in hotels, and it is a little more flexible since most camp sights do not take or require reservations. We are not sure if that also is true for just the two of us if we rent the XL sized 4 x 4 campervan, they are the largest an most expensive, and a used a lot by families with children. For just the two of us, it may not be the most economical, but is still one of the best ways to see Iceland. However, both methods of travel do require some scheduling so that all of the things we want to see are achieved.
We will continue to research the different types of 4 x 4 vans and try and come to some choice on at least our top two choices in case our preferred van is not available by the time we sign up to rent it. We want to be able to see actual airfare cost for our dates of travel before we commit to a rental, and those costs will not be available for about 45-50 more days based on the airline’s ticket availability schedules, which are typically only available 330 days before the latest flight date, which would be our return date. Google Flights only shows flights out until July 19, 2024 as of today.
While we are waiting on the flights, we will spend some time trying to come up with a preliminary Itinerary.
That is all for this update.
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